Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The air inside the subterranean core had settled into a stagnant, suffocating soup of vaporized stone, copper, and boiling marrow.

The golden radiance that had violently erupted from Yun Ming’s frame continued to hiss, its borrowed, unnatural frequency grinding against the natural leylines of the subterranean bedrock.

Pinned against the massive dragon-wood and spirit-iron pillar, Ling Luochen hung broken.

Her head rested limply against her blood-soaked collarbone, her long, pink locks matted with sweat and gore.

The broad crescent blade of the halberd remained buried deep in the center of her chest, anchoring her lungs and ribcage directly into the stone behind her.

Dark crimson blood ran in steady, sluggish streams from the four golden stakes piercing her palms and the tops of her feet, forming a dark, steaming puddle across the fractured granite below.

The black tribal tattoos of the Descending Asura Demonic Physique, which had once burned with terrifying, unbridled demonic intent, had faded into faint, sickly bruises beneath her pale skin, flickering erratically as the burning foreign energy embedded in her meridians slowly strangled her vital flame.

Standing before her, Yun Ming’s knuckles creaked against the shaft of his halberd.

His eyes were entirely washed out by blinding, pupil-less golden light, the borrowed life-force of forty thousand Blue Star souls roaring like an unstable nuclear reactor within his swollen meridians.

His face was twisted into a grotesque, manic sneer, devoid of the calculating composure he had once worn as a modern corporate leader.

SHRRRRK!

With a brutal, wrenching jerk of his arms, Yun Ming pulled out his halberd.

The broad crescent steel ripped free from Ling Luochen’s chest with a sickening, wet suction, tearing through muscle and cartilage, sending a fresh, thick spray of dark arterial blood splattering across his glowing ethereal armor.

Ling Luochen’s body arched in a silent, agonizing spasm, her chin lifting slightly as a raspy, blood-choked gasp tore from her ruined throat, only for her head to collapse forward once more, dangling solely by the golden spikes nailed through her palms.

Yun Ming stepped back half a pace, his boots splashing in her blood, and raised it to cut off Ling Luochen’s head.

The golden halberd blazed with incandescent, destructive qi, humming with the terrifying velocity of an executioner’s guillotine primed to fall.

His muscles coiled; his eyes narrowed with vicious finality as he prepared to cleave her slender neck from her shoulders, intending to feed her severed head to the system’s recycling furnace.

”Die in the dark, you treacherous bitch,” Yun Ming spat, bringing the massive blade downward in a lethal, decapitating horizontal arc—

But at that moment, the world seemed to freeze.

There was no sound of air parting, there was no localized spatial friction, no fluctuation of spiritual essence, and not the faintest whisper of a breeze across the damp stone floor.

Reality simply bent backward, and where there had been empty, dust-choked shadow, Shen Haoran stood.

His robes fell in pristine, immaculate folds; his hands were resting naturally behind his back.

And, at that very moment...

[CRITICAL ANOMALY DETECTED!]

[FATAL COLLISION IMMINENT! EVADE! EVADE! EMERGENCY SPATIAL BLINK INITIATED!]

The translucent, blue interface before Yun Ming’s inner vision violently screamed in blinding, blood-red emergency fonts that covered his entire field of view!

A piercing, high-frequency alarm shrieked directly into his cerebral cortex, paralyzing his thoughts with the sheer, unadulterated mathematical certainty of instant, irreversible death!

And before he could move...

BZZZZT!

Space fractured beneath his soles, and his form dissolved into a chaotic smear of golden digital code.

He then materialized on the far side of the subterranean chamber, crashing against the base of a shattered archway, his boots skidding across the loose gravel and carving deep trenches into the stone as he fought to arrest his frantic momentum.

Yun Ming’s chest heaved like a broken bellows, the borrowed power within his veins turning ice-cold.

Sweat poured from his brow, stinging his eyes as he clutched the golden halberd in a trembling, white-knuckled grip.

His knees shook; his breathing came in short, jagged gasps, his eyes bulging as he locked onto the white robed silhouette standing calmly beside the bloody pillar.

The entity before him carried no weapons drawn, unleashed no overt pressure, yet the localized space surrounding the youth seemed to physically bow, radiating an ancient, primordial terror that caused the system’s internal algorithms to spin into endless, frantic warning loops.

Yet despite his fear, Haoran had simply decided to ignored him.

To Shen Haoran, an ant that scuttled across the floor was still merely an ant, regardless of how bright its shell gleamed.

Instead, his bright, golden eyes swept over the horrific carnage pinned against the granite.

He looked upon the ragged, bleeding puncture wound in Ling Luochen’s sternum, the shattered bones of her wrists, and the cruel golden stakes driving through her palms and feet.

Yet, in his gaze, there was no pity, no horrified shock, and no frantic rush—only the calm, measured appraisal of an emperor inspecting a general who had held the line against insurmountable odds.

”Well done,” Haoran spoke softly, his voice carrying the smooth, resonant timbre of cool jade, slicing through the damp silence of the subterranean tomb. ”Your strength and will, I have recognized it.”

The words were not loud, but they carried the immense authority of the Shen Immortal Clan.

Against the cold pillar, Ling Luochen’s trembling frame shuddered.

The faint sound of that familiar voice penetrated through the foggy, necrotic haze of her fading consciousness.

With agonizing, monumental effort, her neck muscles strained, lifting her heavy, blood-caked chin from her chest.

Her blackened sclera and red pupils, glazed with the approaching shadow of the Yellow Springs, focused weakly upon the pristine, untouched figure standing before her.

She saw the unruffled clasps of his robes, and the cold, golden majesty in his eyes.

Then, a faint, trembling curve pulled at the corner of her swollen, bloody lips.

It was a small, broken smile, stripped of her usual timidly, carrying only the quiet, profound relief of a loyal vassal who felt delight after being praised by her master.

She couldn’t get a word out as her chin fell forward once more, her breath slowing into an imperceptible whisper, her consciousness safely surrendering to the dark void.

Then, the living, primeval ink of the Descending Asura Demonic Physique, recognizing that its host was no longer in mortal combat, slowly retracted.

The black and red tribal glyphs covering her neck, jaw, and forearms dissolved like retreating shadows, slithering across her skin to coil quietly back into the deep leylines along her spine, leaving her battered flesh pale and unadorned.

Haoran stared at her, and with a subtle, effortless flick of his left hand, an invisible blade of compressed sword intent severed the four golden stakes pinning her limbs.

The dense energy pegs instantly shattered into harmless golden dust.

Before her limp, broken frame could collapse onto the blood-soaked stones, Haoran’s arm blurred, his hand catching her gently beneath the shoulders, supporting her fragile, shivering weight with fluid, effortless grace.

From his spatial ring, a faint pulse of silver light manifested between his fingers, holding a single, thumb-sized pill carved from celestial nine-leaf marrow.

The medicine glowed with an ethereal, nine-colored halo, releasing a rich, fragrant mist of refined immortality-dew that instantly dispelled the bitter stench of blood in the hall.

Haoran pinched her chin lightly, pressing the pill past her parted, pale lips.

The moment the elixir touched her tongue, it dissolved into a warm, liquid river of supreme life-force that surged directly into her ruptured dantian.

The gaping hole in her sternum began to knit together with visible, rapid speed, the shattered bone fragments aligning and fusing as clean, new flesh closed over the wound, stabilizing her flickering soul-lamp and wrapping her damaged meridians in a protective, healing cocoon.

Cradling her battered form with calm leisure, Haoran walked toward a dry, elevated stone dais near the edge of the shattered chamber.

He then gently placed her down upon the stone, arranging her robes with measured care so that her wounded limbs were unburdened, ensuring her recovery would proceed uninterrupted.

He straightened his posture, and slowly, deliberately, he turned his body around, facing the trembling figure clutching the golden halberd dozens of paces away.

The moment Haoran’s silhouette turned, the ambient light in the subterranean cavern died.

The shadows clinging to the walls elongated, twisting into jagged, predatory shapes that crept across the floor like hunting beasts.

Yun Ming’s throat felt parched as if he had swallowed a fistful of dry ash.

The golden light spilling from his eyes flickered violently as he forced his voice through his trembling teeth.

”You... who are—”

But before he could finish his words...

[EXTREME THREAT DETECTED! HOST! DODGE!]

The red interface screamed across Yun Ming’s vision in jagged, broken fragments, completely cutting off his question!

Abandoning all dignity, all pretense of martial form, Yun Ming threw his body sideways across the jagged rubble, his armor scraping frantically against the broken granite as he executed a desperate, panicked tumble!

SHIIIIING!

And the very moment he moved, a sword intent had cleaved the area where he was previously standing.

There was no physical blade drawn, and Haoran had not even summoned Azathoth or even drawn a blade.

Yet, from the mere direction of his gaze, a hairline fracture of pitch black severance tore through the atmosphere!

The six-foot-thick stone archway, the reinforced bedrock floor, and three massive granite pillars behind the place her was previously standing it were even sheared in half with terrifying, microscopic smoothness!

The cut was so absolute that the upper half of the wall hung suspended for a fraction of an instant before sliding diagonally off its foundation, crashing into the ground below with a deafening, thunderous roar!

Yun Ming scrambled to his knees in the dirt, his breathing coming in ragged, terrified gasps as he looked at the bottomless, smooth black fissure running through the bedrock mere inches from where his boots had rested.

If he had hesitated by second, if his system had delayed its calculation by a single frame, his torso would have been neatly divided into two equal halves.

’System, just who the hell is guy!?’

Yun Ming questioned, his heart still beating and definitely wouldn’t calm down soon.

This is the second time in this moment that he felt death trying to claim him, and he does not want to experience it again for the third time!

[Host, think of him as the leader of the otherworldly demons, someone that actually shouldn’t be offended. Unfortunately, it seems it’s too late]

’Damn it, can you still sacrifice those players to increase my strength? As long as I survive, I will definitely rise again! We can even find another world to settle in to if it really comes down to it.’

[Host... that’s...]

’What are you hesitating for? Hurry!’

Just then, the click of Haoran’s embroidered boots against the damp stone was slow, measured, and rhythmic, sounding like the unhurried tolling of an ancient funeral bell in an empty cathedral.

He took one step, then another, his pristine white robes floating gently in the draft, his posture relaxed, hands hanging loosely at his sides.

Haoran then came to a halt ten paces away, tilting his head slightly, his lips parting to let out a soft, pleasant murmur that felt like an icy dagger sliding between the ribs.

”It seems you enjoyed hurting her, huh.”

The words hung in the subterranean gloom, heavy with an unspeakable, horrifying finality.

Haoran’s gaze slowly drifted down to the golden halberd still dripping with Ling Luochen’s crimson blood, then drifted back up to lock directly into Yun Ming’s terrified, trembling eyes.

A faint, razor sharp smile, one that promised horrors beyond the comprehension of mortal flesh, carved its way across Haoran’s sculpted features.

”Rejoice,” Haoran whispered, his voice smooth as silk and cold as the grave. ”For you will weep tears of blood begging for the mercy of being wiped from this universe.”